


Water in the Bushes

by hedaclexuh



Category: Elyza Lex (Fanverse), Lexark - Fandom, QTWD, queer the walking dead
Genre: Emotional Hurt, F/F, i wasn’t gonna add elyza but, lexark, she adds herself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 12:18:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12276321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedaclexuh/pseuds/hedaclexuh
Summary: Alicia Clark is alone after she left her family after the bunker. She needs water and a certain blonde shows up, offering just that.





	Water in the Bushes

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn’t gonna add Elyza into this but I’m not confident enough in myself to write all angst so here she is.  
> This is just what I think (wish) could happen to Alicia after she leaves her family to have some much needed time for herself. It’s set like a few weeks after that.

Alicia sat quietly in the cold cave Jake showed her during one of their many adventures, watching the flames from her torch cast shadows on the dark stone walls. 

She thought of their last adventure, running around, hiding behind sparse bushes and playing a game. They called it training, find the missing person, but really it was fun. They were still children, their youths ripped away along with their lives, their families. Her eyes filled with tears but none fell, not because she wouldn’t let them but because they couldn’t. She hadn’t been able to cry since the moment she walked out of that bunker, the only survivor out of all those people. She didn’t deserve it. 

Her brown hair was as greasy as it had ever been, stringy, plastered to her forehead. Her sunburnt skin was matted in dried blood, left over from the bunker and all the lone infected she ran into on her trek away from the truck, left abandoned on the side of the road once the gas ran out. Everything around her reeked of death (there was nothing new about that, she had been surrounded by death for months. Her nose was nearly accustomed to it,) her skin was sticky from the most recent training session she gave herself, slashing her knife at cactuses and rock walls until she collapsed from exhaustion, her lungs screaming for air, filled with dust and her arms aching from overuse. 

Her thoughts wandered, drifted to all the painful things that have happened in only a few months. They drifted to fighting with Jake in his house, she didn’t love him but she did care for him, he probably died thinking she didn’t. They drifted to being trapped in the bunker, with the air running lower and lower with each passing second, only being able to sit and wait for Ofelia to fix whatever problem had arisen. They drifted to all the dead, chasing her through the shelves as she desperately tried to save the one person who sat with her when she didn’t think she could continue on. They drifted to the disappointment in Madison’s eyes when she informed her she wouldn’t be going with them to the dam, the one place her mother thought would be safe for them. But she let her go. She didn’t chase her like she would have chased Nick. Alicia could care for herself, she always had. 

Her skin was burning from the scratching of her dull nails, trying to escape the body she felt trapped in, from her relentless scrubbing, trying to clean herself of the people she killed. All the innocent people that should have survived. She should have found something else to help them. She should have died with them. She could have made a stronger barricade around the ranch, she should have checked the bunker before the end came. If only she could have blocked-

A crunch from outside broke her out of her trance, a barely there snap of a twig, awakening her senses. She stood up, ignoring the dizziness that blackened the edges of her vision, she pulled her trusted butterfly knife out of her worn boot and flipped it open before stalking quietly to the entrance of the cave. She kept her back against the cold wall, sliding against the rough edges of rock and shuffling through the tight space as she prepared herself for the burn of the harsh sunlight once she passed the protection the rock offered her. She turned the corner with a quick and quiet ease, only achieved through months of practice. She squinted her eyes against the harsh white light but once her eyes grew accustomed to the bright sun she looked around and saw that no one was there, the empty desert stretched out as far as she could see it. The silence was so loud it was deafening and she tilted her head to listen closer, hoping to catch the noise of whatever was out here before it could surprise her again. 

She used her left hand to shield the sun from her mossy green eyes and glanced around herself once more before deciding she must have been hearing things, hallucinating from lack of rest and overused emotions, and made her way back into her cave, her home. 

Once she reached the big, open area of the cave she kicked a small pebble at the wall, sitting down on the hard ground to try and get her heart to start beating at a more normal pace. She needed to get back on track, think about ways to find water, try to execute her plans and probably fail. Everywhere she looked was dry sand for miles in every direction, the occasional cactus or dry bush. After two minutes of silence, her heart nearly settled, a shuffling sound behind her made her jump up to face the back of the dark cave, scarcely lit by the torch propped against the wall. 

There stood a blonde woman, two inches shorter than herself with a pistol strapped to her thigh and a rifle hanging from her leather clad shoulders. A faint scar on the bridge of her nose and dirt coating every visible part of her body and she probably smelled almost as bad as Alicia did herself. Her arms were crossed over her chest and a smug smirk sat upon her lips. This woman was dangerous, Alicia couldn’t pinpoint exactly which way, but she knew this stranger would bring her trouble. 

“Who the fuck are you?” Alicia asked defensively, gripping the handle of her knife tighter in her right hand while the left was braced against the rock wall, rough and cold under her palm.

“Don’t worry, I don’t intend to harm you. I just need somewhere to sleep for a couple days.” She had an accent, english? Australian maybe. She stood so casually, as if she knew Alicia wouldn’t attack first. Or thought she knew, Alicia let her believe that for the time being, but she kept her muscles tight, ready to attack. 

“Why should I believe you? Get out, find somewhere else. This cave is spoken for.” Alicia moved her knife to hold it in front of herself, narrowing her eyes and taking a threatening step forward. If the other woman was threatened, she didn’t show it. 

If there was one thing Alicia learned through the apocalypse, it was to never believe a stranger, ever. She’d seen what her mother had done after she convinced innocent people to trust her, an innocent mother with two children that just need a place to sleep during the apocalypse. She didn’t know who her mother was anymore. 

“I’ve got water. Lots of it. I’ll let you have your fair share if you let me crash here for a while. By the looks of it, you need it.” The woman looked Alicia up and down, she could tell she was weak. Her body looked thin and frail, her jeans barely hanging onto her hips and her shirt sagging at the sides, her eyes sunken and her lips chapped. Her skin looked paler than it should be in the hot mexican summer, almost sickly. 

Alicia paused at the mention of water, looked around the cave, but she couldn’t see anything indicating the woman brought it with her. Did this person think she was stupid? That she would put her knife away and gladly follow her to an undisclosed location in the search for something that probably didn’t exist? Sure her mind wasn’t working at it’s full potential with her dehydration and malnourishment slowing her thought process but she wasn’t a fool. She was going to wait until she knew for sure she had it, think the subject over until she had the upper hand. She wouldn’t show her back, she wouldn’t let her knife leave her hand. She wouldn’t show this stranger her weakness. 

“Where?” That wasn’t what she meant to say, it slipped past her dry lips instead of something along the lines of ‘fuck off’ or ‘get out’ and it made her sound a hell of a lot less menacing but she couldn’t take it back now that the blonde’s eyes brightened in the thoughts that she might have just made a deal. 

____“I hid the cartons outside, I didn’t want you to kill me the moment you saw me. I thought there was a better chance of compromising on something if I didn’t just show up bearing gifts and my throat. Your hearing is better than I expected, I accidentally broke a branch off a bush outside and had to run around behind you to get inside.” The blonde was walking around the cave now, a casual, confident stroll that made Alicia’s blood boil. She swung her arms back and forth and she ran her eyes over the wall, as if she was in someone’s living room and was observing their artwork. But these walls were bare, a natural cave, dark stone walls dented and sharp._ _ _ _

____“Well if you want any kind of deal at all, show me the water.” Alicia stood still, feet planted on the dusty ground and watching the woman’s every move keeping count of the paces between them, how many seconds it would take to cross the small space._ _ _ _

____“Can we shake on it first?” She stuck her hand out towards the brunette, a wide, friendly smile on her face. Her teeth were curiously white._ _ _ _

____Alicia was hesitant, was this some sort of trick? What kind of significance did a handshake have anymore? She slowly extended her left hand towards the other woman until her thin fingers were enclosed by the blonde’s grimy hands. (Alicia’s weren’t faring much better.) The brunette gave the other woman’s hand a firm shake before snatching her own back towards herself and looking pointedly towards the exit of the cave._ _ _ _

____“Should we go then?”_ _ _ _

____“Yeah! It’s not too far. Just promise you won’t kill me once you’ve seen where it is? Everyone’s got some seriously bad trust issues these days, man.” She laughed, shaking her head and shoving her hands in the back pockets of her black ripped jeans and Alicia nodded slightly, flicking her chin towards the faint light at the end of the tunnel._ _ _ _

____After a few tense seconds, the blonde made her way to the exit and Alicia followed behind a few paces, never tucking her knife away, never letting her guard down._ _ _ _

____“I’m Elyza, by the way. With a ‘y’.” She said over her shoulder._ _ _ _

____Alicia didn’t respond and they both continued walking out of the cave and through the dried up bushes which grew randomly throughout the entire desert. Both their eyes were squinted, hands blocking the harsh sunlight as best as they could while it seemed to shine down from every direction. After walking for nearly five minutes, Elyza stopped next to one of the bushes, hands on her hips, looking proud of herself. Alicia just stared, glanced around the vast space and then back at Elyza, waiting for an answer._ _ _ _

____“Well? What’s so special about this spot?” She asked incredulously. Her arms were crossed, knife’s blade held away from her own skin yet still grasped tightly in her hand._ _ _ _

____Elyza bit her tongue, reached a hand into the prickly bush and when she stood back up, straightened her back, she had an old milk carton filled with clean water clutched in her hand. Alicia’s mouth gave a painful, dry throb at the sight and she glanced back towards the blonde who placed it on the ground, reaching into the bush with two hands this time and pulled out two more four litre cartons._ _ _ _

____“Jesus, how much water did you get?” Alicia’s eyes grew three times their usual size and there was a sparkle to Elyza’s blue eyes as she placed the water on the ground next to her feet, happy with Alicia’s interest._ _ _ _

____“I’ve got about fifteen of these cartons, full, in a bunch of different bushes. I ran into a friend a while back and she set me up with a supply.” The blonde shrugged nonchalantly. She knew it was a big deal to have this much clean water around here. People would kill for it in a second._ _ _ _

____“How much are you giving me?”_ _ _ _

____“Straight to the point, aren’t you? I like it. I’ll give you a carton for every night I spend in your cave.”_ _ _ _

____“Yeah, okay, I can do that. Don’t keep them out in the open like that though. Either put them back in the bush or bring them to the cave you never know if someone’s watching. Water’s worth everything now.” Alicia motioned towards the jugs on the ground, using her foot to nudge them towards the dried bush in an attempt to keep them hidden. She needed the water, she couldn’t last much longer without it, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep much as long as the blonde was there, she would have to watch her back all the time._ _ _ _

____“Don’t get all paranoid on me now.” Elyza laughed, picking up two cartons and standing back straight. “Grab the other one, lets go back to the cave.”_ _ _ _

____“Yeah, okay let’s go.” Alicia furrowed her brows as she glanced around, canvassing the area until she deemed it safe and hefted the carton onto her hip, it was heavier than she expected. She hasn’t realized how weak she had become. She made her way back towards the cave as quickly as her exhausted body could take her._ _ _ _

____“So… Are you gonna tell me your name?” Elyza asked once they were both sat on the floor of the cave, backs against the walls and a jug of water each, both nearly half empty._ _ _ _

____“No.”_ _ _ _

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the read! Comments and kudos are always very welcome.


End file.
